An Exclusive Westside Gazette Interview

It looks like it is going to be one explosive year in the world of politics. Historians and political pundits have estimated that more money will be spent on this November’s upcoming elections than at any other time in United States history. The presidential election is a highly contested race between two distinctively different men, but Governor Mitt Romney, and President Barack Obama are not the only two who will be duking it out.

There has been a very stark and noticeable change in Washington since the insurgence of the Tea Party, and for many candidates, they have determined that the election of 2012 will have widespread do or die circumstances both from a figurative and a literal sense. There are several races across the country that are indeed statewide races with candidates who will be battling it out to represent their constituents, but these races also have some very real consequences on a national scale as well. Who gets elected where will have a very heavy impact on how policy will be driven, and just what types of laws we will see passed in this country, and for years to come.

One of the most important races of this election year is going to be the fight over who will represent Virginia House District 7. Currently that congressional seat is being held by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. His challenger is an attorney and military veteran named Wayne Powell.

In an exclusive interview we sat down with Mr. Powell to talk about his quest for House Seat 62 and how he sees us moving forward as a country.

NDG: It looks like Virginia District 7 race is going to be one very heated battle, and the outcome could have a huge effect on people all over America. Why do you believe that political pundits and political junkies view your race as a national race verses a state one?

WP: Well I think first and foremost in the last two years once Eric Cantor became the Republican Majority Leader of the House, although he had some power before, it was much quieter in the sense that much of what he did was behind the scenes and was not that publicized. But now as the Leader of the House he was mandatorily if you will, the subject of focus by the media, and his views and the views that the GOP represented became much more public, and I think that some of the true qualities that some people had seen before when he was in the state legislature, and that people had seen in Congress. I think they saw lack of empathy, his quest for personal power, and of course we think from those people that he probably has some goal to control the economy, and even the government. The country became much more widely known. But I tell people sometimes when I call people outside of the 7th District, and talk to them about the campaign, and they say well why do I care? I am in District so and so in another state, and I say well you care because this man has approved the Ryan Budget which of course has called for an increase of 2.7 percent in deficit spending. I mean he is not who you think he is. He claims to be conservative, but in fact he is a borrow and spend individual who wants power for himself, and he doesn’t really care about spending other people’s money, or what they call OPM. I mean the other people are you and me. We are the taxpayers, so when he talks about the President and the Democrats in Congress wanting to spend more money, he in fact has been spending money since he supported President Bush’s two wars that were totally not funded and un-budgeted, and look at where we are today, I mean that is only one part of the problem, but that is the part that he clearly supported. We never should have been in Iraq in the first place, and as a military intelligence officer, I know that, I had actually been one of the people who was working on the anti-terrorist effort. Basically he is not who he claims to be, and I think that people need to know that. What he has done, and what he has advocated has hurt this country immensely.

NDG: Speaking of Eric Cantor and his business contacts and all of the money that he has, he is backed by some major business leaders, and with their support comes a huge, almost bottomless pit of money. You seem to have the support of the people, and even some of Hollywood is standing behind you. Now Madeleine Stowe is going to be stumping with you a little bit today, and she is the star of ABC’s television hit drama Revenge. How did all of that come about? Why is she involved in your campaign?

WP: Well I know that she learned about my campaign, and obviously not only people in California, but all over the country know about Eric Cantor. She is a personal friend of our Strategist David Mudcat Saunders, and she became interested in me after looking at our website which is powellforva.com, and of course we’ve got a new website up now called cancantor.com, and that shows the extent to which Mr. Cantor has sold himself out to the richest and the most powerful in some cases, multi-national corporations, and these super pac donors such as Sheldon Adelson from Vegas. And I think that she saw in me, as she stated in a speech that she gave last night to the Women Strike Force here in Richmond, she saw in me someone who looks at the county’s interest first instead of my own and that is totally true based on my record which I have no qualms in revealing to anybody; 30 year veteran in the military, and a 32 year attorney. What I have done in my life in addition to defending my country is to find justice in this wonderful document called the Constitution for all people who I have represented, and for all people who I meet. I mean I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve, and I do not think that it is appropriate to in our country, but I can tell you that the things that I took from the leads of my parents is to treat everybody fairly, and to try to represent people in any way I could, to obtain justice for them. And justice is the cornerstone of our country and it ought to be, it has been, and instead of talking about it, I try to implement it, and I think she saw that in me and that’s what I do.

Wayne Powell is seen not only as a threat to Eric Cantor, but to the Republican agenda at large, so much so that only a few days ago media outlets all over the country reported that billionaire Sheldon Adelson had dropped 5 million dollars into Cantors’ superpac.

Powell and Canter are two very different men with two very different agendas. Join us next week as we continue our con-versation with Mr. Powell. We will learn more about his 30 years of military service, his stance on Obamacare, and exactly what he meant when he called Eric Cantor fiscally irresponsible.